International professional player and poker celebrity Daniel “Kid Poker” Negreanu took to Twitter this week to express his delight at the first successful screening of his new Twitch livestream channel, a project on which he received technical assistance from pioneer poker Twitcher Jason Somerville (see previous reports).
The Kid had plenty to be pleased about – within an hour of his first Twitch broadcast his channel had recorded 4,200 viewers – an order of magnitude greater than that of other Twitch streams online at the same time.
That is all the more remarkable considering it was not a major competition or event; Negreanu was using Twitch to stream from his Las Vegas home, and he confined his action to play-money, followed by a lively question-and-answer session that included exchanges on nosebleed stakes poker and personalities.
Clearly Negreanu’s high profile as an entertaining and outspoken poker personality has pulling power, and judging from his tweets The Kid has more in store:
“Thanks again to @jaimestaples for helping me set up @twitch and @JasonSomerville for making this platform cool. That was fun! More to come,” he posted.
He has a way to go before he can boast the same Twitch audiences as Somerville, however – the poker pro who really brought Twitch to the attention of the poker community regularly attracts audiences of up to 90,000!
Negreanu is in good company; other high profile professional players are already experimenting with Twitch, including Felix Schneiders and Bertrand ElkY Grospellier.